Our top tip for anyone is to always backup your data, however, a backup also needs a backup plan. We have had a number of recent cases where the backup device has been damaged, become corrupt or subjected to a virus. If this is the only copy of data then things become a bit hairy. We also have instances where people move their music and photos off their computer to an external drive and think they have a backup – if the external drive is the only remaining copy – there is no backup. To recover the data the only solution would be data recovery, which can be very costly. We strongly encourage people to implement a backup plan for their actual backup. Here are our 3 tips to creating a robust strategy.

1. Disconnect your backup data
Make sure you backup to a media that can be physically removed from your computer and stored offline. Whilst this is less convenient than permanently leaving it attached, it is good habit to form for a couple of reasons. Firstly it moves the backup out of harm’s way from physical damage, theft or if a virus ever infects your PC.

2. Store your backup in multiple locations
In addition to having and onsite local backup, we recommend creating an offsite backup. The Cloud is an excellent offsite backup where data is stored
virtually and therefore protected from physical damage and malware. You can also have a physical offsite back up, ideally in a fireproof store like a safety deposit box, or in a different country. Second, if you store it in a safe place (ideally fireproof and offsite) it is protected to some extent from natural disasters and physical damage. If you have backups in multiple locations, the risk of losing all the data is minimised.

3. Backup multiple versions
The most effective way to safeguard your backup is to maintain more than one copy of your data. We have already mentioned the benefits of having a Cloud back up. A step to further safeguard your data would be creating additional physical backups i.e. to another UBS, external drive, DVD – again, ideally stored in multiple locations.